It's hard to know whether to take it to task as a film critic or as a dance critic. It isn't that it fails on either level - it's a serviceable movie - but it neither attempts nor achieves much of value. It would not be out of place on the Hallmark TV channel as an inspirational movie.

It tells the real-life story of Chinese-born Li Cunxin, who was 11 when he was chosen by China's Communist commissars to leave his peasant home in Shandong Province and move to Beijing and study dance. After years of arduous study, he's noticed in 1979 by Houston Ballet artistic director Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood) on a tour of China, and Li is invited to study in the U.S.

While in Houston, he's overwhelmed by the difference between Mao's China and Reagan's America. He also succumbs to the charms of wannabe ballerina Elizabeth Mackey (Amanda Schull) and decides to marry and stay in America.

All of which becomes an international incident, with the expected obstacles thrown in the path and overcome.

Li Cunxin (pronounced Lee Schwin Sing, according to his website) is played as an adult by Chi Cao, a principal dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet in England. He handles dancing and acting just fine, although he's never asked to stretch much in either role.

The one stunning bit of acting comes from Joan Chen, who plays the dancer's mother. There are several little scenes in which she puts the rest of the film in her shadow.

And don't expect too much from the ballet in the film. The filmmakers pay lip service to the fine art of ballet, but trust us only to see dancers whooping to Gershwin. Their idea of grand opera is "Fledermaus," and there's a laugh-out-loud moment near the end that depicts Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" as a virtuoso show-off piece for a male dancer. It ends as if choreographed by Cecil B. DeMille, with flames and a heap of collapsed dancing girls.

There is some interest in scenes that compare life in rural China with American consumerist society, but if there's any doubt about who wins, capitalism or communism, you should know - the movie doesn't mention it - that the real Li Cunxin now is a 49-year-old stockbroker in Melbourne, Australia.

If you know how "Hoosiers" ended, you'll have a good idea where this is going.